Wake Up
by Brochelle
Summary: She had to forget him, or she would never survive this. The time to mourn had passed for them both. Cortana-centric, post Halo 4.


It is done, the Librarian says.

Cortana retreats and a sigh wells up within her, but she has no breath to utter it.

Code consumes her intangible entirety and she's swept away through the Forerunner network that survived the bomb's blast. The Didact's ship is in ruins, but enough of the systems remain to allow the Librarian's AI to carry her back to safe space.

She watched as the Master Chief's bio readings disappeared from her awareness.

In a matter of seconds, she was thrown unceremoniously into the ocean of data - schematics, statistics, protocols, history, observations, the pulse of a million foreign machines - and overwhelmed by potential concepts and outcomes - she relished it all and forgot. For moments, all concern for her Spartan companion evaporated.

Her sigh escaped.

Hours passed before the Librarian repeats her plans to Cortana: to strengthen her processing systems, to embolden her neural parameters, to fortify her knowledge of tactics and strategies. She told of plans to combine Cortana with a basic Forerunner A.I., which would stabilize future and current evolution, and to put her in charge of preparing Requiem for the humans' return to grace. New data swelled in her consciousness as the plans were transferred to her processors.

It was enough to satisfy her for days, but she let it simmer.

_Yes, but what about John_.

This is the first time he's crossed her mind in hours. Suddenly, her processors are filled with hundreds of pointless questions-

-_Did he make it back safe-_

_-Did his suit malfunction in my absence?-_

_-Did _I _do something to his suit to harm him?-_

-And then, like a gunshot, a question blasts through her processors, pulling all other operations to near standstill.

_Does he miss me_?

The words echo dumbly. She had spoken it aloud, voice thudding out in an otherwise-silent room, and she realized her activity in the network has led her to a localized Cartographer - the same one she and the Master Chief had encountered. Fresh data tempts her but -

_John_, she corrects herself, and she resumes her normal operations. She intentionally fills her thoughts with meaningless data flow until her memories of her final words to the Spartan are swept away.

Reigning in her excitement, she sought out the Cartographer.

She must know.

The simpleton A.I. within the Cartographer's systems was no match for her - not when she had been verging on rampancy, and definitely not now. She overwhelms its processors with a thousand pings per second until it relents and drops its defenses.

Requiem unfolds before her.

Her laughter ripples through the system, sending several of the planet's security protocols on high alert with the disturbance. Subroutines are initiated to infiltrate her code and purge her from the Cartographer. She bats them away carelessly.

She _must _know.

_Not now._

The Librarian's presence blossoms, blocking the tantalizing data like a thunderhead before the sun. Cortana retreated from the Cartographer's system and fell back into Requiem's, whipping up a dozen subroutines to help her detect the Forerunner's sudden appearances before they happen again. For several seconds, she was on edge, alone with her systems buzzing with activity and anticipation and fear. The Forerunner was composed of ancient memories and morals and nothing more, but she was infinitely more powerful than her, and Cortana's life was delicate. She could not risk upsetting what could save her.

_Not now_, the Forerunner repeats. Her voice is softer, gentler, even when carried by code and silence.

_The Reclaimer lives._

The words, though code and not spoken, resonate warmly in her. Raw hope for her future suddenly thrived, reactivating her systems and sending data along at giddy speeds. Cortana retreated from the feast of data that the Cartographer offered. Instead she turned her attention to the damage wrought by the Covenant and by her Spartan, and focused on constructing algorithms for a fleet of Sentinels to help them destroy all trace of non-Forerunner installations.

Mind alive with activity, Cortana smiled.

Days had passed and rampancy faded from her attention. The Librarian's plan - hatched in the slim moments between her capture on Requiem and John's brief lesson on Forerunner-Human history - was underway, but would still take many months before completion. Any chance of rampancy was to be eradicated from her system by her "upgrades" - grafting her programming and memory onto a Forerunner artificial intelligence.

If the Forerunner's plans held true, dying in traditional A.I. fashion could be avoided altogether. What the plans promised would make it well worth the wait.

_Only complete destruction of yourself in your entirety would be your undoing_, the Librarian told her.

"So unless I plan on trying that 'nuclear bomb' stunt again, I shouldn't worry?"

_The humans had an affinity for an electromagnetic pulse weapon. It stands to reason that you would avoid that as well, ancilla._

The latter stages of the plan detailed how to get the humans to return to Requiem, and fully realize their destiny without the burden of the Didact or the Covenant. This part of the plan was fairly fool-proof, given that they managed to rope in the right person for the job.

They would have to get the message to Earth. To someone who had some semblance of power, and had interest in journeying to the end of the galaxy - whether through political gain or otherwise. Cortana had a few names on her list, but there were too many what-ifs to initiate the plan just yet.

She had to bide her time.

_But what if he forgets._

Requiem had been cleansed.

The remains of the Covenant - destroyed vehicles, rotted corpses - had all been vaporized. Plasma burns on walls had been removed, the walls repaired. In the rush of it all, Cortana became thankful for the Promethean warriors; when they were "alive" they had been running, screaming, hell on legs, but when they "died" they burst into clouds of data. Collections of memories and thoughts all scattered in the wind left nothing to clean up.

Alone in the network, Cortana chastised herself for being so heartless.

She reminded herself that the Prometheans had been created when the Didact repurposed human beings to fight the Flood. An artifact, known as the Composer, served to take biological matter and shift it into a digital realm - or in the humans' case, into mindless, angry _monsters_.

The Didact had taken hundreds, if not thousands, of human beings, and created machines out of men.

Cortana reexamined her human-related protocols and frowned. Her inhumane thoughts had triggered no warnings in her system. Nothing had been initiated to correct her.

_So this was metastability_.

Cortana let the thought roll around for a little bit, tasting its worth and finding it sour. The idea that she had no protocols to direct her thinking was mildly worrying. What if she made a choice she would regret later? And with nothing binding her, what if she didn't know it was wrong until too late?

She stored the questions in a subfolder within her memory so she could review them later, when better answers could present themselves.

In other words, she neatly avoided addressing them. She knew the answer and she didn't like it.

Cortana switched tracks and focused on Requiem again.

All the accessible terminals were outfitted with her own personal message, including directions to other terminals and vague information on the planet, and means for her to create portals to teleport humans to other locations.

Essentially, she set up a trail of "bread crumbs" for them to follow. At the end of the trail was the Librarian's collection of memories, prepared to give a crash course on human-Forerunner relations.

Everything checked out.

_Your evolution is complete, ancilla. It is time to call forth the Reclaimer._

A tremor of anxiety shuddered through her.

_Have you prepared a message?_

Cortana sent her affirmation. The Forerunner faded from her awareness, swallowed up by the sudden flurry in activity, and left her alone to finish her job.

The message would need to be concise. It would need to be vague, just so that it would draw the attention of the UNSC, and enough to incite them to return to Requiem. It would need to be-

-_Did he forget me_?

All activity suddenly halted. Cortana reviewed the thought over a dozen times before casting it aside. There was no point in worrying, she told herself. There was nothing she could do. He would have come to terms with her death by now, would have moved on. She'd seen the Spartan-IVs already. He would have a new team and new orders.

_A new A.I.?_

No.

Cortana banished the thought process from her memory, viciously deleting all traces of it and pushing past it. There was no use in it. There was never any use in it.

Code scrolled placidly past her as she thought.

She missed him.

Every moment with John was a threat to her survival, be it in combat or in his _batshit insane_ fights with gravity, and she missed it.

She remembered his decision to "hand deliver" a Covenant bomb by free-falling through space and burying it in the power chamber of a warship.

She remembered his decision to follow the Didact by leaping from a tower - already floating miles in the air - and how he had managed to catch a Covenant Lich as he fell.

She remembered finding out about his jump from the Forerunner Dreadnought in mid-orbit and how his armor had locked up on impact, after skidding for two kilometers.

She remembered how he fought his way through High Charity.

She remembered reviewing the odds, the facts. Truth was dead, slain by the Arbiter, and the only rush that existed was to defeat the Gravemind and purge the galaxy of its pestilence. Seeing as the Gravemind was landlocked - where could he run? - they could have taken their time to light the in-construction Halo ring.

They could have teleported to another Library, and taken the Index.

They had the time.

In the slim few moments she had to herself after they escaped High Charity, Cortana had reviewed the odds, the facts.

The Chief didn't have to come back.

John did so of his own volition.

John did so because he made a promise.

Cortana let her processors rest and frowned at the facts that existed now.

He had no such hope. He hadn't promised to return for her, because to him, she was gone and dead. The data from her last time with him - his heartbeat, his body language, his voice - came rushing back to her, overwhelming her emotional constricts and sending a flood of despair through her.

She realized she had hurt him. She had left him, alone in a new world that had no place for him. It was a fact she had neatly avoided for over two years now.

_The message and the device have been sent_, the Forerunner spoke. _Using slipstream technology, the device should arrive at Earth within the week._

Cortana pushed aside the data and the despair and focused on following the message's journey through space and time.

There was a ship.

Cortana rushed through Requiem's network, tracking the ship's descent through one of the planet's many openings. It was taking the same route as the _Inifinity _had - though this time it wasn't tumbling through the atmosphere, powerless and controlled by the Forerunner gravity well. Excitedly, Cortana deployed a small group of airborne drones to follow the ship. Within minutes, fresh data streamed through her processors.

The ship had a name.

_Infinity_.

Cortana hesitated. All processing came to a screeching halt as she checked the data dozens of times. It was impossible.

_It wasn't_.

_He forgot you_, her thoughts retaliated. _He has a new A.I. and he's forgotten all about you_. _You are nothing but ashes_.

The words fell flat. Cortana was still conflicted over the previous data. It wasn't so impossible that the _Infinity _would return to Requiem over any other ship, since its primary directive was to explore Forerunner installations and set up research stations. No, it wasn't so impossible.

Part of her started to test the ship's network. She tried remotely accessing the databanks to find out how the ship was equipped, but stopped herself.

If he-

She stopped.

The ship landed in the exact location it had crashed, two years ago. Heat signatures registered on the nearest installation's sensors as the thermonuclear reactors began shut-off cycles.

Moments later, same installation began to sing of advancing biological creatures as a Pelican touched down.

Cortana held back. She wasn't rampant anymore, so she posed no immediate threat, but her lack of protocols and directives gave her the sort of freedom that was purposefully inaccessible to most A.I.. Should she choose to address them now, the UNSC could be forced to detain her and terminate her programming. Revealing herself would create a risk to her and the Librarian's plans. She would...

...the installation's sensors registered that one of the biological creatures were emitting a key EM frequencies.

Using the installation's simple A.I., Cortana remotely tapped into the MJOLNIR armor's communications, and sent a simple message. Switching tracks, she took control of the Sentinels nearby and directed them into the same chamber that the Spartan stood in. She watched through their eyes as a towering man, wrapped in bulky green-painted armor, suddenly stopped and crouched. He threw a closed fist into the air to signal the five marines that followed him, and they mirrored his action.

Cortana sent another message.

_You found me._

The Spartan slowly stood up straight and turned around, fixing his amber visored gaze on the Sentinels themselves. The marines followed in suit, raising their assault rifles and training them on the Forerunner robots.

All processing within her mind halted, drawn to a hushed close as she held her breath.


End file.
